Context: Recently, the National Initiative for School Heads and Teachers Holistic Advancement (NISHTHA) programme has been launched for the first time in online mode in the state of Andhra Pradesh.
Key Points

• Around 23,000 Key Resource Persons and 17.5 lakh teachers and school heads have been trained under NISHTHA in face-to-face mode till date.
• For training the remaining 24 lakh teachers and school heads, NISHTHA has been customized for online mode.
• NISHTHA has been customized for online mode to be conducted through DIKSHA and NISHTHA portals by the NCERT, owing to the COVID-19 pandemic and the resulting need for maintaining social distance and avoiding the congregation of people.

About the NISHTHA Programme

• It is a National Initiative for School Heads’ and Teachers’ Holistic Advancement at the elementary stage under the Samagra Shiksha scheme.
• The programme was launched in 2019 by the Department of School Education and Literacy.
• Thereafter, 33 states/UTs have launched this programme in their states/UTs in collaboration under Samagra Shiksha, which is a Centrally Sponsored Scheme.
• It is a capacity building programme for “Improving Quality of School Education through Integrated Teacher Training”.
• It aims to build competencies among all the teachers and school principals at the elementary stage.
• It is the world’s largest teachers’ training programme of its kind.
• The basic objective is to motivate and equip teachers to encourage and foster critical thinking in students.
• The expected outcomes of NISHTHA include, among others, improvement in the learning outcomes of students, creation of an enabling environment in the classrooms, improvement in the responsiveness of teachers to the social, emotional and psychological needs of students, ICT integration, etc.

Implementation

• In NISHTHA first level training has been provided by the National Resource Group (NRG) to the Key Resource Persons (KRPs) and State Resource Persons-Leadership (SRPs-L) identified by the states/UTs.
• The NRG has been constituted and oriented by the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) drawing members from the NCERT, National Institute of Educational Planning and Administration (NIEPA) and Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS).
• KRPs and SRPs-L will provide training directly to teachers at block level.
• A robust portal/Management Information System (MIS) for delivery of the training, monitoring and support mechanism has been infused with this capacity building initiative.

About Samagra Shiksha Scheme

• The Government of India launched this scheme under the Ministry of Human Resource Development. The Department of School Education and Literacy looks after its administration. 
• The scheme was launched with a view to improving the quality of school education.
• The Scheme represents a paradigm shift in the conceptual design of school education, by treating ‘school’ holistically as a continuum from pre-school, primary, upper primary, and secondary to the senior secondary levels.
• The scheme was drafted with the broader goal of improving school effectiveness measured in terms of equal opportunities for schooling, and also equitable learning outcomes. 

Samagra Shiksha Scheme Genesis
The Samagra Shiksha Scheme was formed by subsuming the following three schemes to ensure an integrated and holistic school education:

1. (RMSA) Rashtriya Madhyamik Shiksha Abhiyan 
2. (SSA) Samagra Shiksha Abhiyan 
3. (TE) Teacher Education 

• The goal is to treat schooling as a smooth transition from pre-school, primary, upper primary, secondary and senior secondary level.
• It focuses on improving the quality of education at all levels by integrating the two T’s – Teachers and Technology.